UNC Basketball: 10 recruits UNC fans wish the Tar Heels had signed
Harry Giles
In the recruiting class of 2016, there were few names bigger than that of Harry Giles III. The 6-foot-10, 230-pound Giles was a consensus top-2 prospect nationally — the other being Kansas Jayhawks shooting guard Josh Jackson — and we were sold what almost felt like a bill of goods regarding his limitless and all-pervasive skills on the basketball court.
And why? Well, at least partially because the number of living humans that have seen him play at full health can be counted on one hand. The ACL injury that he suffered during his senior season at Oak Hill Academy cost him the remainder of his high school career, and much of his lone season at Duke.
The 5-star power forward started just six of the 26 games he played for the Blue Devils, and averaged just 11.5 minutes per contest. That obviously affected his stat line of 3.9 points and 3.8 rebounds per game, turning his time at Duke into more of a footnote than anything else. It was also evident very early on in the season that fellow 5-star recruit Jayson Tatum was the true star of the show.
Roy Williams and the Tar Heels recruited Giles as hard as any prospect in recent history, and made it into the Winston-Salem native’s list of five finalists. North Carolina was looking to bolster a front court that was set to lose All-ACC performer Brice Johnson the following season. The Tar Heels did, however, boast the big bodies of Isaiah Hicks and Kennedy Meeks, though there were question marks surrounding their consistency and conditioning, respectively.
Fortunately, the Tar Heels got a commitment from 5-star center Tony Bradley just a couple of months before missing on Giles in the winter of 2015. It turned out to be all they’d need that season, as Hicks and Meeks put together terrific senior campaigns in Chapel Hill, while Bradley played an instrumental role off the UNC bench. Led by their massive front court, an All-American wing in Justin Jackson and Final Four Most Outstanding Player Joel Berry II, the Tar Heels won the 2017 NCAA Tournament title.
Giles and ‘the Brotherhood’ lost to South Carolina in the second round. The oft-injured Giles finished the game — and his college career — with zero points in nine minutes of play.